Level Up
by zero-damage
Summary: Mitsuo Kubo has always been a good boy. In the corridors of Inaba Municipal Hospital's psychiatric ward, he makes a new friend.


_**You are MITSUO KUBO. You have always been a GOOD BOY.**_

_**COMMAND?**_

* * *

**2010-04-19**

Mitsuo Kubo's career at Yasogami High lasts exactly six hours.

Middle school was different, at first. His mother _(my handsome boy) (always so proud of you, Mitsu-chan_) said that if he worked hard and followed the rules, everything would be fine. Everyone would like him - and so polite, well-behaved Kubo was always in the top ten in his year on the exam list _(never the first) _and one of the orchestra's most competent violinists _(never the best). _

And completely invisible.

Nobody hated Kubo. Nobody particularly _liked_ Kubo. Very few people, Mitsuo eventually realized, even registered his existence. By his final year, his consistent academic performance seemed to bore even his teachers (_'good work Kubo' in a half-assed sloping scribble_) and had done nothing to win over his classmates.

He soon realizes Yasogami will be no different. It's not when the other students ignore him in the corridors, or when he remembers half of them doing the same thing at his old school. It's when he spots a pretty, dark-haired girl _(blanking him completely)_ in his homeroom and tries to take the seat across from hers. Morooka rails at him for being a pervert and she _still_ won't look his way - and something in his head snaps.

Mitsuo bolts out the classroom door, eyes stinging. He's at the Practice Building before he realizes nobody - not even Morooka - has come after him.

Two hours later, after the firemen finally let everyone back in to the building (_smoke in the corridors, fire alarm ringing) (go ahead and ignore __that__)_, Morooka's yelling, Principal Satomi's peering and frowning over his glasses, and Nakayama's on the phone to Mitsuo's mother. Three more hours after that, when they're driving home, Mother will ask him _why_, again and again.

Mitsuo won't answer. But deep down, he knows he was just sick of pretending.

* * *

_**LEVEL 1: PERIL! AT YASOGAMI HIGH Complete**_

_**REWARDS:**_

_**+7 Relief**_

_**+8 Emptiness**_

_**+1 fleeting sense of satisfaction**_

_*** ENEMY TEACHERS DEFEATED: 0**_

_*** PRINCESSES RESCUED: 0**_

_*** MOTHERS HEARTBROKEN: 1**_

_**COMMAND?**_

* * *

**2011-07-05**

Mitsuo reads the newspapers _(bedroom wallpapered with clippings and grey photographs) _and he knows the lurid stories by heart. One was a marriage-wrecking diva; the other spread her legs for a college boy and crawled back home when he lost interest. The message Mitsuo is supposed to take away, he thinks, is that Konishi and Yamano deserved everything they got.

The truth is that he doesn't care. Less than a month on and the media's already bored of eulogizing the victims (_so young, so tragic, shame they were sluts)_ - but the killer? He's just fascinating. Everyone's talking about him, even when they aren't _(sidelong glances, Inaba used to be such a __nice__ town)_ and even though all he's done is kill.

Mitsuo's never killed anyone, but he thought he could pretend. He's tried - posted a dozen confessions on 2channel, told every chat room he could find - but nobody believes him. Nobody really thinks he's Inaba's serial murderer and nobody ever will. Not unless he shows them.

He got good grades and people ignored him. He played violin and only his mother cared. Now he beats the toughest games instead - and if anything, that makes the kids at his new school outright _dislike_ him.

But he's never killed anyone.

* * *

**2011-07-09**

Five days pass with more confessions _(liar, liar, bet you can't prove it) _and more news reports. Some pop idol who went missing – kidnapped, they'd said, maybe by the murderer – shows up again, smiling for the cameras, twin-tails and a white shop apron.

If she died, people wouldn't forget her - or who did it. Mitsuo needs to tell her about that, he thinks. So he walks down to the shop they showed on television, late in the evening, brand-new crowbar in hand.

But he doesn't have much of a plan, and when he gets there, someone else is already standing outside the shop on the opposite side of the street. A short boy in a blue cap, staring through the shop's open door. He notices Mitsuo first, then the crowbar an instant later, and his eyes narrow and his muscles stiffen.

"Why are you here?" he asks.

"I – I'm a fan."

"Kujikawa-san is occupied." The boy looks back at the door. Inside the shop, Risette's talking with a grey-haired boy. "She is also entitled to her privacy. I strongly suggest you leave."

And looking closer, the grey-haired boy is horribly familiar. Mitsuo remembers seeing him in the park _(time for training, don't slack off!) _and in the shopping district _(hey, Senpai, wanna go to Aiya?)_ and at Junes _(five minutes till I'm on break, partner). _Most of all, Mitsuo remembers standing outside Yasogami High, asking Yukiko Amagi if she maybe wanted to—

"Stop it!" he snaps - and the boy in the blue cap steps back, eyes wide. "I'm going, just leave me alone!"

He stumbles away, leaving Risette and the blue and grey boys behind, toward the north end of the district. He can't think of anyone else to pick, somebody people wouldn't forget, and he's on the verge of throwing down the crowbar and going home – when he sees Morooka walk out of the liquor store, a paper bag full of bottles at his side.

After that, everything's simple.

Mitsuo regrets it, later. In the dark at the top of the water tower, he'll realize he chose the wrong person; that nobody will ever miss snide, ugly, hated _(laughing and sneering, like Mitsuo was one enormous joke)_ Morooka. But right now? Everything's perfect.

* * *

_**LEVEL 2: MITSUO SLAYS THE DRAGON**_ _**Complete**__**.**_

_**REWARDS:**_

_**+100 Fame!**_

_**+100 Glory!**_

_**+5 days alone in a windowless cell**_

_*** SWINGS OF A CROWBAR: 1, 2, 3**_

_**COMMAND?**_

* * *

**2011-?-?**

The lines and corners of the dungeon trace themselves through Mitsuo's mind _(geometric, synthetic, familiar) _as he lies flat on his back, listening to low voices and the sound of footsteps. His head and eyes ache and the walls and floors are pixel blocks and there was a fight _(I feel have am nothing) _and the grey-haired boy stands over him, blocking out the red and black sky. There are tears in Mitsuo's eyes, and he knows the boy can see them.

"We just came to talk to you," the boy says.

Mitsuo also knows that's a lie, especially when he catches Amagi at the edge of his vision – but the boy's looking at him, expression evenhanded, and just for an moment he lets himself believe it.

Then he confesses _(lies)_ and the boy no longer meets his eye. Mitsuo almost regrets saying it, until another, taller boy starts yelling at him and he remembers the only truth he's ever learned: it's better to be hated than ignored.

* * *

_**LEVEL 3: CONQUERING VOID CASTLE Failed!**_

_**MITSUO has been knocked down!**_

…

_**RETRY?**_

_**Yes**_

_**-)No**_

* * *

**2011-10-07**

There are no clocks in Mitsuo's room_._ Outside the barred window there's darkness, but it's October and the days are short _(never-ending) _so he isn't sure of the time.

He's been in Inaba Municipal Hospital's psychiatric facility _(sociopathic) (best place for him)_ for months, though, and he knows the schedule. The doctors visit during the day, ask if he's sleeping, how his mood has been _(choose a face from the "today-I-feel" chart)_. They don't ask why he did itand they don't look up from their clipboards.

Mitsuo doesn't care. He's a somebody now. Besides, the doctors all move on eventually and they all act the same - except for the one currently standing in the corridor outside. This one's young, so they won't stay long. They shouldn't even be here right now. He has to use 'they', since every time he looks at the doctor he sees something different. And the doctor is different too, nothing like the rest - because when Mitsuo looks through the small plexiglass window on his door, they look back.

* * *

**2011-10-10**

The police, who stopped asking questions far too soon, finally come back.

Two detectives. One wide-eyed and fidgeting in a cheap suit, the other as worn down as the ragged cigarette stub hanging from his lips. Mitsuo thinks he remembers meeting them in the Inaba police station _(in front of a television in a dark interrogation room)_ but doesn't care enough to ask their names.

Another body, they tell him. Hanging from a street lamp _(across telephone wires, over a television antenna, upside down from the water tower railings_) at the edge of the shopping district. Couldn't have been his. They now know that, except for Morooka, the rest probably weren't either. So, the ragged guy says, rasp of ash in every word - Mitsuo better damn well start telling the truth.

Mitsuo grits his teeth and says nothing.

They give up surprisingly quickly. Fifteen minutes later they leave the room, shrugging and muttering _(Shirogane was right, poor damn kid)_ and fumbling for their cigarette packets. The strange _(strangely familiar) _doctor walks into the visitors' room as soon as the detectives leave, and sits down opposite Mitsuo.

"Why didn't you say anything?" the doctor asks, wide-eyed and curious.

Because they're the police. Because if he stays silent, maybe they'll believe he killed Konishi and Yamano.

Mitsuo still says nothing.

"If you'd said something, they would have stayed longer. Paid attention." The doctor bites their lip, tears prickling at the corners of their eyes. "It's all _I_ ever wanted to them to do."

They're about to cry _(and boys never cry, Mitsuo-kun)_ and he's going to see it if he looks too closely - so Mitsuo closes his eyes instead. When he opens them again, the doctor is beaming a smile, their fingers tapping an odd staccato rhythm on the table.

They're _weird_. But they're looking and listening, and some small part of Mitsuo realizes he'd do almost anything to make that never stop.

"I'm Mitsuo," he says.

The doctor giggles. "I already know _that_."

* * *

_**LEVEL **__**0**__**: POLICE DECEPTION SEQUEL Complete**_

_**REWARDS:**_

_**+15 Minutes of Attention**_

_*** IDIOT DETECTIVES OUTWITTED: 2**_

_*** STRANGE DOCTORS IN THE ROOM: 1 **_

_**COMMAND?**_

* * *

**2011-1****0-****24**

Mitsuo sees the strange doctor a few times after this, wandering _(running and giggling)_ through the corridors of the hospital, though they never speak to him – not until two weeks later, when he wakes up to find them sitting in the centre of his room. Even in the dim moonlight, he still recognizes the white fabric pooling around them.

"Doctors shouldn't be here so late," he says. Doctors shouldn't be so small either, or be rocking back and forth, cross-legged on the floor.

"I like this place. And I remember you from before, so I thought we could play a game." The doctor stops rocking and claps their hands together. "Like I Spy! Or Phoenix Ranger Featherman R, or jan ken pon, or-"

"Remember me from where?"

"…The police station. And inside the television," the doctor says, then shrugs. "The other you, anyway."

Mitsuo doesn't remember any of that _(doesn't want to)_ and definitely doesn't remember the other him. Because it _wasn't_ him. "Whatever. You don't make sense," he spits.

The doctor's expression shifts sharply, from smiling eagerness to a painful blend of pity and amusement. "Ah. That's right. He said you were nothing, didn't he?"

"Shut up! You don't know anything!" Mitsuo hurls a pillow on the last syllable, but this only makes the doctor laugh. "If – if I was nothing, why would the police come to see me? Wh-Why would they lock me up here?"

The doctor's lips curl into a sneer. "The police were imbeciles. Unable or unwilling to realize Morooka's death broke the pattern completely." They lean back on their palms and stare at Mitsuo. No contempt now, just curiosity: examining a sample in a petri dish. "The reporter, the schoolgirl - no matter what you claim, you didn't kill them."

Rage bubbles up inside his chest, but the rest of him feels thin and papery and it wedges itself in his throat. He didn't kill them, no matter how hard he pretends that he did, and what's the point in lies when nobody pays attention to them? Mitsuo looks at the doctor, sprawled on the floor like a child _(little kid playing dress-up) (little kid with a scalpel and a twisted smile) _and says, wearily, "How the hell would _you_ know?"

"Because I know what did. So do you." A tip of the head. "But why did you lie?"

"They all ignored me. Everyone. But they never stopped talking about the killer, and I thought if I - " His throat hurts now, his eyes are stinging and he _knows_ where this is leading, just like with the doctor - so he screws his eyes shut. "I-I just wanted to be somebody."

He opens his eyes and the doctor's staring at him, yellow eyes wide and hollow. "Nobody listened to us either. Nobody _ever_ listened. That's why all this happened."

* * *

**2011-11-1****0**

The door to Mitsuo's room is open.

It shouldn't be. He's not allowed to go outside without a nurse, and he's definitely not supposed to go out at night. But the doctor stands in the doorway and curls their finger, beckoning him to leave the room – and Mitsuo follows.

They don't go far. Just to the rec-room a few doors down the corridor, a place Mitsuo's never been allowed to go _(dangerous criminal!) (lost little boy)_ and which is dark and empty this late at night. The doctor takes him by the hand and leads him to the large television in the corner of the room.

"Just touch the screen," they say, and they try to push his hand against the glass.

Mitsuo jerks back as if it might burn. "_No_."

The doctor's eyes glow yellow in the dark, and he can see they're chewing their lip. "He's still there, you know. And soon he'll be here instead."

"Shut up! He's the one who's nothing! I'm - I'm _everything_."

"He wants to meet you again. I met mine too. I made us what we were supposed to be." On the last half of the sentence, the doctor's voice begins to tremble. "Then they left."

Mitsuo realizes then why the doctor looks so familiar. A short kid, standing outside Risette's shop _(Risette deserves her privacy)_ - then a week later at the police station, arguing with the ragged detective outside the interrogation room_ (too stupid to listen, all of you!)_

And he remembers the name the detectives used, but he doesn't dare say it. "Like Saki Konishi and Mayumi Yamano," he says instead.

The doctor gives an absent nod. "People always leave. Same as the reporter, same as the schoolgirl." They tap Mitsuo on the head with one sleeve, and he doesn't think to move away. "But you, 'Tsu-kun…you're not going anywhere."

* * *

**2011-11-18**

The grey-haired boy sits opposite: hands on the table, expression blank, fingers worrying at his sleeves. "You remember me, don't you? Souji Seta."

Mitsuo stays silent.

"My uncle's police partner helped arrange this meeting," Seta says. "You're probably wondering why he bothered."

"I don't care."

His expression flickers with something Mitsuo can't name – just that it's the first crack he's seen in Seta's armour _(no better than me, just playing pretend) _and it churns his stomach.

"My cousin was taken. We – we can't find her in there." Seta's fists are clenched and his gaze is fixed on the plastic surface of the table. "And - I thought you might…" He stares at Mitsuo, as if waiting for the rest of the sentence, then shakes his head.

"I don't care," Mitsuo repeats.

Seta's jaw tenses. "Look, you didn't kill Yamano or Konishi. After Shirogane was - -" He stops and closes his eyes, a crease in his forehead. "We - we couldn't get there in time. We _tried_. But he was right about you."

"No he wasn't," Mitsuo says – but it sounds meaningless. Reflexive.

Seta's eyes fly open. "Somebody had to have thrown you inside. _Please_, Kubo - if you remember anything - -"

And something in Seta's hollow expression, the way he's leaning forward over the table, makes Mitsuo wish for one moment that he had an answer. But he doesn't - so he shakes his head.

* * *

_**LEVEL -1:**__** SILVER-HAIRED TEENAGER, FIGHT! Complete**_

_**REWARDS:**_

_**+10 Superiority **_

_**+30 Guilt**_

_*** REASONS TO FEEL REMORSE: 0**_

_*** WAYS YOU'RE BETTER THAN HIM: Innumerable**_

_*** DAYS REMAINING: ? ? ?**_

_**COMMAND?**_

* * *

**2011-12-06**

He's been sleeping less and less. Not like he used to, staying up all night playing video games and dozing through class the next day. This is different. There's nothing to do and nothing to distract him yet he still can't sleep, and maybe that's why he doesn't mind the strange doctor's night-time visits.

They bring something different each time: bottle-caps, a half-deflated football, a collection of shiny stones. Whatever it is, they inevitably leave it behind, and Mitsuo shoves it under his bed with all the other stupid, useless junk. He doesn't tell the doctor this and he isn't sure why.

They're sitting on the floor opposite each other now, trying to play Koi-Koi with a deck missing three of the months. The doctor would probably be winning, if they didn't keep getting distracted by the colourful pictures on the cards. Mitsuo's mind is on the grey fog pushing against the windows, and the way more and more people are showing up in the facility, to the point where the normal doctors talk about sending him off to Okina instead _(out of sight, out of mind)_.

If Mitsuo told them what he's been dreaming – that he beats himself to death almost every night, crowbar extinguishing that yellow glow – maybe they'd keep him here. But saying it, acknowledging that fake, might make it true.

"I don't _want_ that asshole to come back," he tells the strange doctor. "The other me. I hate him."

The doctor's attention is focused on the card in their hand, their finger tracking over the pattern on the back. "But he _has_ to come back. He's you."

Mitsuo feels his face twist into a scowl. "No he _isn't_!" he hisses. "He's just a fake!"

The cards are swept across the floor, and the doctor tugs at their hair with both fists. "You shouldn't say that, it's what we said, it isn't right!"

"I'll kill him," Mitsuo says, because he could, he _would_, he's done it before _(bloodied crowbar shaking in his hands) _and it was as easy as breathing.

"All you can do is accept him, fool, and yet you refused. Just like mine." The other voice now, deeper and crueler and too much like his father. "She didn't get another chance. You will."

* * *

**2011-12-15**

The strange doctor hasn't appeared tonight, but Mitsuo's door is still somehow open.

At a loss, he creeps down the corridor to the rec-room, thinking the doctor might be inside _(cross-legged on the table, hello 'Tsu-kun!) _but the room is empty. The television's still in the corner.

Mitsuo walks closer, holds his hand in front of the screen. Pushes closer, until he can feel a strange heat pressing against his palm.

He could dip his fingers through the screen. Grab someone's hand. Pull them out.

His own hand jerks away automatically, falls to his side, and Mitsuo stumbles back to the rec-room door.

* * *

_**LEVEL -356AB:**__** REACH OUT TO EMPTINESS Complete**_

_**REWARDS:**_

_**+10**__**0**__** Cowardice **_

_**+Three nights in a row staring blankly at the screen**_

_*** WHAT YOU ARE: Everything**_

_*** WHAT YOU ARE: Nothing**_

_*** WHAT YOU ARE: Terrified**_

_*** WHAT YOU ARE:**_

_*** DAYS REMAINING: ? x? ?xfhr**_

_**COMMAND?**_

* * *

**2011-12-23**

The fog grows thicker and the facility gets busier still, till every bed in every room is taken. Mitsuo remains alone - partly because he's too dangerous, but mostly because the strange doctor doesn't visit for two whole weeks.

The grey-haired boy does. Wearing a hospital gown, shouting about monsters and Personas and that he killed a man, pushed him into a television. Two orderlies drag him away and Mitsuo doesn't see him again. He doesn't particularly want to. He does want to see the doctor _(eyes wide and desperate, always listening)_ but they don't show up – not until two days before Christmas, when the fog outside is so dense Mitsuo expects it to burst through the glass and bars on his window.

The doctor hasn't brought anything to show him this time, and they don't sit on the floor and pull out a Hanafuda deck. Instead they hold out their hand, pale fingertips barely poking out from white fabric. "Come with me."

"Why?" Mitsuo asks.

"Everything's going to change, 'Tsu-kun." The doctor keeps their hand held out, while the other twists and bunches the white fabric of their coat. "You, the other you and me, we'll all go together, we won't have to be alone."

And something lurches in Mitsuo's gut, a cold weight tumbling down – because he doesn't want to be alone, he never _has_ – but he knows he can't face that other him. Not now. Not ever. Because it _isn't_ him, it can't be him _(I am nothing, I should be everything)_ and it won't _ever_ be him.

He locks his knees and swallows hard. "Maybe I want to be."

The doctor stands there, eyes narrowed, biting their lip _(is that how he looked, what Morooka and Seta and his father all saw)_ and for one horrible moment, Mitsuo expects them to burst into tears. He closes his eyes tight, and this time he doesn't open them.

He hears footsteps, the doctor walking across the room. "I'll see you both soon," they say, soft and resigned, and the door closes.

* * *

_**LEVEL -9373435110**_

_**REWAR?AF-LJ%SHL$$EHSNHJ**_

_**...**_

_*** DAYS REMAINING: 1**_

_**COMMAND?**_

* * *

**2011-12-24**

The wind howls at the window. The walls blur into the fog. Mitsuo keeps his eyes shut.


End file.
